Jayaben Desai, living a quiet life in Willesden in the 1970s, would not have been tipped by many at the time as an influential political activist and defender of rights. And yet, circumstances, together with her sense of justice and her determination to see justice done, took her into national and international headlines as one of the leaders of the Grunwick strike in 1976-78, one of the longest strikes in British history.
Jayaben was born in Gujarat, north-west India, and as a schoolgirl was a supporter of the Indian Independence movement. In 1955, she married Suryakant Desai, a tyre-factory manager, and went to live with him in Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika) in East Africa. After 1964 however, their lives changed. Following the independence of Tanzania the Desais, and many others, lost their jobs and property. Like so many from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they fled to Britain.
Life in Britain was hard for the new arrivals, but they were determined to make the best of things and to progress. Suryakant and Jayaben settled in Willesden in the London Borough of Brent with their two children. In a later interview she recalled this time.
“Grunwick advertised door-to-door in Brent. They said any education, any caste, no experience. I was working at home, sewing and dress making and I was depressed. I was afraid to go out. My big son said to me Mum you need to go out .” [1]
Grunwick was a mail order photo processing business , flourishing in the days when we still used cameras with rolls of film that needed developing, and of course the summer holidays were the busiest season with crates of film which had to be turned around quickly. Grunwick’s charges were cheap because their labour costs were low. The owner George Ward had founded the firm in 1965, and had relocated to Neasden in order to tap the newly arrived cheap Brent Asian labour market. He said that small business like Grunwick provided more jobs by keeping costs down, and that he had right to run his business as he wanted, without any interference.
At Grunwick, the management was entirely male and mostly white. The workforce, however, was largely female and mostly Asian. These women were also expected to play a traditional domestic role at home and were the ones most affected by the long hours and compulsory overtime. Ward particularly disliked Trade Unions, and had never allowed any Trade Union to represent workers on his premises. There was a works committee, but it had no real power, and historically workers’ complaints were not really dealt with.
This was the company that Jayaben Desai went to work for in 1974.
The Grunwick strike started on a hot August day in 1976, when Jayaben led a walk-out after a row with her supervisor. The row started because of a disagreement about overtime, but quickly escalated into a complaint about harsh conditions and bad management. The striking workers joined APEX, a moderate Trade Union. More workers joined them, and after a week there were ninety one full-time and forty eight part-time workers on strike. They all received a letter from Ward on 2nd September, telling them they were sacked.
The strikers, led by Jayaben Desai, wanted two things:
- That all the strikers should get their jobs back;
- That Ward should recognise their Trade Union and let the Trade Union bargain for better pay and conditions.
Ward refused.
Jayaben, who had no experience of industrial action, had help from Brent Trades Council and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). It was Jayaben, however, who made many speeches, travelled up and down the country seeking help from other unions and inspired many to support the strikers. She became a role model for women, particularly Black and Asian women, who felt that up to now their concerns had been ignored. She gained respect and support from male trade union members who had not always been sympathetic or helpful towards their female colleagues.
Whilst the strike did not achieve its aims, it is still remembered, not as a defeat, but as an important turning point in the history of protest. It was the first strike where ethnic minority workers received proper support from the Trade Union movement, and the example of Jayaben Desai and her colleagues gave other ethnic minority workers the confidence to speak up for themselves and participate more actively in their unions.
After the strike, Jayaben Desai continued to play an active part in the community, giving speeches which inspired the younger generation and helping Asian women in Brent become more independent.
By Linda Hampson, a U3A Shared Learning project researcher for Citizens 800.
[1] Andy Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2010)
